Nigh of Light Fireworks (click on image to see gallery) One of the great parts of Night of Lights is the firework show. It is done on the slopes and is gorgeous! We were there to just enjoy friends and the evening so shooting wasn’t a priority. Still shooting the Df at ISO3200, I switched lenses to the 24f1.4AFS, shot at f/1.4 and just enjoyed the evening. I was shooting haldheld, actually using just one hand so wanted a fast shutter speed. Knowing where the fireworks were being launched, I could tell when a shell was being shot off. I just framed up the Groomers Christmas tree and depressed the shutter release. I let the law of averages take care of the rest. Great show, enjoy the...

Saturday night was our annual Night of Lights here in Mammoth. It’s a grand seasonal celebration on the slopes attended last night by six thousand folks (the gondola ride up and back is always a hoot). Well as you can imagine, I took a camera, figuring it would be another good test for the Df loaded with the 58f1.4AFS. Between working in the crowds, shooting in 25degree temps on the snow and the total dark outside venue, figured it would be a challenge. Last year I shot it with the D4 / 24f1.4AFS so I knew what that combo would produced. So I have a baseline to compare to. I was ready to rock it. Now I’m no Allen Hess, Brad Moore or Drew Gurian (very talented shooters!) by any stretch of the imagination. My goal when shooting the band wasn’t anything more than to see what the Df / 58f1.4 would do in this dark world, hot lights and high ISO. Yeap, I shot at ISO3200 and I...

I’ve been enjoying the image quality of the Df. After seeing the DxoMark stating how the Df is better than the D4 (which is pretty amazing) I wanted to see in the real world if that is the case. So when we visited the Sandbar Mitchell project, I shot with the D4 at ISO1600. Since I shoot A LOT of restoration projects and often shoot with just available light, I knew this would be a great test for the Df’s noise performance. What you see here is a severe crop of the base of the seats in the darkest part of this B-25J cockpit (red square top photo). You can see rivet and nuts head detail in the crop. That is pretty darn sweet to me. Na, I haven’t done a side by side between the D4 and the Df. But I did shoot a project with the Df and it did a really good job, great job. So between what DxoMark said and what my own real world...

On our recent trip to Ann Arbor, I took just the Df, 50f1.4AFS & 18-35AFS (P7800 & SB-300 as well) because I wanted to put the Df though more real world work (I’ll be commenting on it all week). I just wanted to show you that it actually is a tough camera today. Many seemed to have gotten the impression the Df isn’t built well, quite the contrary! Whenever I get new gear, I abuse it just to make sure that a year after purchase, I have something still performs like new. The Df is solid construction and up to this point, handling with ease everything I’m throwing at it! Note: photos taken by Sharon with her V2 which can also take the...